


Draw Back The Curtain

by thinlizzy2



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: AU: Damar lives, Cardassian Resistance, Dreamsharing, F/M, Minor Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: All of their lives, both Damar and Kira have tried to ignore their reoccurring dreams about each other. But fighting together in the Cardassian Resistance brings everything to a head, and there are some things that just can't be avoided.
Relationships: Damar/Kira Nerys
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Draw Back The Curtain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rudigersmooch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudigersmooch/gifts).



She'd been having the dreams for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, they had scared her even more than the nightmare of her waking life.

Kira hated Cardassians. One of her very earliest memories was that feeling, right in the center of her chest, of pure and deep loathing. It was a constant; it was there, every day, from the moment that she woke on her hard, lice-infested cot in the resettlement camp that was her childhood home. It stayed with her as she lined up in freezing cold or stifling heat for a meagre portion of rations and it kept its tight grip on her heart every night as she tried to fall asleep to the sounds of the atrocities that occurred in the dark in places where people had no power. Joining the Resistance did nothing to ease it. Each Cardassian that she had killed just fanned the flames of hatred higher; every injustice that she had righted just drove her deeper into it.

And yet, every night, it happened again. She always dreamed of him.

In her dreams, she would be crouched in a tunnel that was somehow different from the ones the Bajoran fighters used. She would be hungry and frightened, but there would be a comfort in knowing he was there with her. Or she would be rising to her feet along with a crowd, thunderous applause filling her ears and pride swelling inside her as he finished his speech. Or she would lift a cup of tea to her lips with hands that were so unlike her own, hands that were wrinkled from age and soft from years without holding a weapon. The betrothal and marriage bracelets on her wrists would clink together, and her husband would smile at the familiar sound.

Her husband. The Cardassian.

Over the years, she learned to ignore it. They were dreams, nothing else. She certainly didn't have the luxury of time or resources to seek help or study psychology, and she never let them influence her actual actions. By the time the occupation ended and the Federation came, the dreams were just another part of her life. She woke with a dual sense of longing and disgust, took as hot a shower as she could tolerate in order to scald the feeling of dirtiness from her skin, put on her uniform and went to work. She made herself sleep every night, fighting the urge to stay awake as long as possible to avoid the inevitable. At the very least, she could make herself confront it head-on.

It wasn't like she _knew_ that particular Cardassian, after all. The man in her dreams was just another dark scaley-skinned figure in armor, with nothing in particular to distinguish him. For all she had known, he may not even have really existed.

She held onto that until the day Gul Dukat arrived to retake the station. His entourage spread out behind him like creeping beetles in his wake, each of them assessing the gathered Bajorans like they were shopping at an exotic foreign market. She watched one curl his lip as he took in the crowd, and the hate she had never been able to vanquish recognized its counterpart in another. Then, as she stepped forward to offer the greeting that was part of her professional duty, their eyes met, he inhaled sharply and another form of recognition swept over her.

She couldn't read his thoughts. Thankfully, whatever connection it was that existed between them didn't extend to that. But she knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that they were both thinking it. 

_So. It's you._

***

Damar, very fortunately, seemed to be as good as she was at ignoring the dreams.

If he had been another Cardassian, if he had been more like Dukat, then Kira knew things would have been very different. He might have lorded them over her, insinuating some kind of claim, doing whatever he could do to get under her skin. But Damar seemed as determined as Kira herself not to let what happened in dreams affect his real life. So they barely spoke to each other, unless it was absolutely necessary. The one time they touched each other, during his whole time on the station, it was in violence not in passion and Kira suspected that he found as much relief as she did in the cold, uncomplicated fact of fists hitting flesh. She didn't _like_ him - far from it - but because of the kind of Cardassian he was, the situation was tolerable.

And that weighed heavily into her decision to accept Starfleet's request. 

Fighting alongside Cardassians, even to overthrow their own corrupt government, was always going to be awful. But at least she was fairly certain that she could rely on Damar not to make it any worse than it absolutely had to be.

For a while, it worked as well as it could. Damar treated her with a sort of cool deference; she was an unpleasant necessity, and there was nothing to be achieved by antagonizing her. The only indication he ever gave that they shared a connection they never talked about was a slight tension around his mouth when they would first greet each other in the mornings. It was nothing that anyone else would ever notice, and therefore it was bearable.

But that changed after Rusot.

Kira wasn't sure what to say to Damar after he killed the other Cardassian. It could be argued that thanks were in order, but were you really meant to thank a man for throwing you a life preserver when you were drowning in his service? She thought about telling him that she had been there too, that she had also needed to put down friends in the Resistance who had become twisted from the violence and had lost sight of the goals. But anyone who knew her history could have easily surmised that, and she couldn't see how it would help.

So she just sat with him, in the dark cramped space that he used as a Legate's ready room, and waited until the silence was oppressive before she spoke. "What do you need from me, right now?"

His voice was raw when he answered her. "Be alive."

"It was a good reason you gave, for what you did." She'd been impressed with his quick thinking in the moment. She was certain all the other Cardassians had believed him. "Was it true?"

Damar shrugged and gave a bitter little laugh. "In part, I suppose. Rusot's Cardassia truly is over. I believe that. And his clinging to it really was a liability. But I wouldn't have killed him for that, under any other circumstances." He swallowed hard. "Not even if he'd had any other hostage."

It wasn't anything that she hadn't suspected, but it was the closest either of them had ever come to speaking out loud about the dreams that linked them. "Damar?"

"Why do you think it happens?" His gaze was burning, even in the darkness. "I'm not a fanciful man, Colonel. I don't romanticise Bajorans. It's just _you_. Even before I knew you, it was you. And now that we've met... do you understand it at all?"

Breathing in was an effort. Kira made herself meet his eyes. "I don't know. I try to tell myself that the Prophets have a reason for everything that they do. And their messages aren't always clear. What might seem to us like..."

"Destiny. Marriage." The words fell from his lips with substantial weight."

"It could mean something else entirely. Just a role we're meant to play in in each other's lives. For all I know, we're doing it right now." There was a brief silence as they both considered that. Since they were finally actually talking about it, Kira decided to press on. "Do you remember when it started?"

He shook his head. "Always? Forever? I don't recall a time when I didn't dream about you. Do you?"

"It's the same for me. For as long as I can remember." She tried to keep her voice steady. "We have work to do. We need to keep doing it.

He sounded so tired. "I've lost one wife already. I never told her about you or the dreams; it never even occurred to me to tell her. In a way, I resented her - for not knowing about something that was so much a part of me, for not being able to make it stop. But she was a good wife, and I loved her as much as I could." 

Kira remembered her orb experience with Shakaar Edon, when they had asked the Prophets if they were meant to be together and learned that the answer was no. Edon had been so surprised; they got along so beautifully and things were going so well. But for Kira herself, it had just been a confirmation of what she had always suspected. What they had shared had been good enough, but it hadn't been her true destination. "I'm sorry for your loss. What I said before, about the orders? I meant it, but I'm still sorry this happened to you. I wish I'd said that, too."

"Thank you." Damar rubbed at his tired eyes with one hand and then cleared his throat. "I meant what I said before too. Please, stay alive."

"If it helps our cause to let me die, then I need to trust you to allow that to happen." Kira had seen too many Resistance cells wiped out because commanders hadn't been able to leave specific individuals behind. "I can't fight for you if I know you aren't thinking about the bigger picture. It just won't work."

It seemed to take an intolerably long time for him to agree, but finally he gave a small nod. And Kira stood up to return to her post, willing her legs to stop shaking before any other Cardassians could see them.

***

If it had happened in the aftermath of a battle, or with the sounds of enemy armies amassing right outside the door, or even in the heat of a pitched argument between them, then maybe Kira could have rationalized it to herself. But the first time she and Damar had sex was on another uneventful night in the long stretch of boredom that comprised life in Mila's cellar, and there was no reason for doing it except that they both finally needed to.

She had woken up to Cardassians shaking her awake countless times in her life, but this one had been different from any other. She hadn't panicked; no instinct had kicked in urging her to fight. Maybe if he'd been demanding or had made any further attempts to touch her, those impulses would have taken over. But Damar had just stood beside her cot, looking helpless and lost and like he didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing.

And so Kira had simply pulled back her thin blanket and let him slide onto her narrow mattress. The feeling of their hands on each other's bodies had been akin to having a comrade-in-arms treat your battle injuries - it was painful and it was comforting and it was necessary. For all the traumas of her youth, in some ways Kira had been one of the lucky ones during the Occupation. She'd never been forced into service as a comfort woman and no Cardassian had ever managed to rape her. But his alien body, so different from any lover she'd ever had, was still familiar after so many nights of dreaming. They held on to each other when it was done, and before the long night was over she pulled him on top of her again.

"I've never believed in your Prophets", Damar whispered to her as he stroked her back. "And even if they are real, I can't understand why they would choose to send me dreams. But here we are, and Prophets make as much sense as anything else."

"Do Cardassians have any deities?" In all of her interactions with them, Kira had never known a Cardassian to practice anything she recognized as religion.

"Not really. There are some fringe groups; there have been historical movements. But I've never seen much evidence for any of it. Until now."

She strained to see his face in the darkness. "So what do you believe in?"

It took a while for him to answer. "Myself. The value of what we're trying to achieve here. And you. I think I need to believe in you."

By unspoken agreement, they were careful not to indicate to Garak or Mila that anything had changed. They came together at night - on most nights, after the first time. But as Garak approached her while Damar napped one afternoon, Kira could immediately tell that they had fooled no one.

"I'm not a prude, Colonel, and I'm not offended. But you should know that no one who has served in the Obsidian Order and lived as long as I have could ever be described as a heavy sleeper."

Kira's face was burning. It had been too easy to fall back into the ways that people managed sex in a Resistance cell; the lovers would make a nominal attempt at being quiet and everyone else would make a similar effort not to hear. But Garak had never been part of such a group before, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what he must have thought. "Are you going to tell anyone?"

He shook his head. "I can't see how that would do anything but harm. I'm surprised though. You never struck me as the type."

The words stung. "It's not like I'm trying to curry favor from some guard in the mines. I'm not a collaborator. This situation... it's different. It's different from anything, Garak, you must know that."

"You misunderstand me, Colonel." Garak's voice, always gentle despite what she knew he was capable of, was even softer than usual. She had no idea if that was a good thing. "It's just because you've survived so long, against some fairly impressive odds. I never imagined you were the sort of soldier who would risk such a dangerous personal injury."

Kira thought, not for the first time, that the Cardassian government had lost a great asset when they alienated Elim Garak. In another lifetime, he could have been an excellent Chief Inquisitor. She was very relieved that hadn't come to pass. "Like, I said, this thing is different." She resolved on the spot not to tell him more than that.

And he seemed to sense it. "I suppose love makes fools of us all, eventually. You may not believe this, but I haven't spent the last several years living on that miserable station of ours because the gaming at Quark's is so superlative. Nor am I trapped there because you senior officers are so discreet that I never happened to overhear anything that a person could use to restore himself to Cardassia's good graces, if he so chose." He shot her an appraising glance. "Now we both know secrets about each other, Colonel. I hope that puts you at ease."

"I won't tell." That much she could promise him. Amazingly, Garak probably had even more enemies on Cardassia than she or Damar. For him to expose such a weak spot in his armor was incredibly risky. "Not even Damar."

Garak nodded, like he'd been expecting as much. "Just please be careful. For all our sakes. And if possible? For my particular sake? Please be quiet."

***

They had an army now.

A real army, made up of genuine Cardassian soldiers who had defected from the military. More and more flocked to Damar's cause every day, an unstoppable wave of skilled fighters who came with weapons, resources and vital military intelligence. As impossible as it would have once seemed, and as unlikely as it still was, for the very first time it appeared that their little band of fighters actually had a possibility of bringing about real change.

So no more hiding out in basements, passing time. They had a chance, and they had to take it.

The seasoned Cardassian fighters grumbled to themselves when Damar chose to take Kira aside to plan their strategy. In another set of circumstances, that might have caused a mutiny. But they all knew that there were too many of them to form a committee that could have any chance of consensus, and if Damar were to choose one faction to listen to then he would risk losing all the others. Additionally, he was already something of a hero in the eyes of these people. With no other choice, they allowed him his Bajoran advisor.

It took them the better part of a day to work out their strategy. Garak brought rations and occasionally dropped in to consult, but other than that they were largely left alone. Even after hours of discussion, they both knew that the odds were against them. But they could nevertheless agree that it was the best plan they were going to be able to formulate, and Kira allowed herself a tiny bit of optimism. She had been up against formidable enemies before, after all. And she was still standing there, ready to fight again. Why not believe that this time would be the same? And if it wasn't, then she would die fighting for the freedom of the entire Alpha Quadrant. It wasn't a bad end, not really. Even though there was still so much more that she wanted to do.

As though he could sense her thoughts, Damar spoke. "I want you to know, should the worst happen?" His voice was low but steady. "In my mind, I would be your widower. I would make sure you received whatever religious rites your faith requires, and I'll do my best to complete any unfinished business that you have."

Kira stared at him, stunned. She wasn't sure how to define what they were to each other, and she suspected that in a less dire situation Damar would have been equally uncertain. The weight of his words - _I would be your widower_ \- pressed in on her. For a moment, she found it hard to breathe.

Damar went on. "Or if there's someone else who you would prefer to take on that responsibility, just give me their name. As long as I'm alive, I'll find them. And I wouldn't blame you either." He sighed. "I spent a lot of my youth telling myself that the Bajorans deserved what we did to them, for any number of ridiculous reasons. And once I was old enough and strong enough to admit otherwise, I tried to console myself by saying that I wasn't as bad as some of the others. That I was a misguided patriot, but never unnecessarily cruel. Never brutal. Just pretty things to whisper to myself, like the lullabies I used to sing to my children. And now I'm standing here with you, a Bajoran soldier, and I'm utterly horrified that I'm might be about to lead you into your death. When how many other Bajoran deaths have I caused?"

"That's not the worst that could happen." Somehow, Kira found the words to reply. "If I don't make it. The new Cardassia that you're building - it can survive perfectly well without me. And if the Alpha Quadrant manages to get through this, Bajor will still have the Federation. They'll be all right."

It was true. In terms of saving their respective worlds, he was far more important than she was. But he shook his head. 

"It's the worst that I can imagine."

Kira swallowed hard. "Damar..."

He cut her off. "Nerys, they murdered my family. Not just my wife, my children too. My parents are long gone; I never had anyone else worth speaking of. This - you and those people out there and this fight - it's all I have." He took her hand and gripped it tightly. "You and I may never get to be what I think we both know we should be to each other. But please, give me this."

She kissed him then. Luckily, they were in a secluded area and Damar had given strict orders that they not be disturbed while they were strategizing, but in that moment it wouldn't have mattered if they had been in the middle of the encampment surrounded by armed men. She kissed him because she wanted to do everything she could for him. And she kissed him because she wanted to.

"If the worst happens... and I want you to know that I will fight like hell to prevent it." Kira whispered the words to him as they held each other tightly. "But if the very worst does come to pass, then I'm your widow."

***

It all happened so fast.

They were making good progress, moving steadily towards the Central Command buildings. It was hard fighting all the way, and the government forces had plenty of Jem'Hadar and Breen firepower to back them up. But Damar and Kira had done a decent job of selecting routes into the city that favoured an invading army and many of the Cardassians assigned to stop them weren't happy with the job they'd been given. It was becoming a fairly common sight to see a government soldier suddenly switch sides mid-fight or even a whole battalion turn on their Breen commanders and fall into step with Damar's group. Nothing was guaranteed yet but Kira knew how to read the mood of a band of fighters like it was her native language, and these people were feeling their power. It hummed among them, a common energy that they all drew from.

And then Damar was hit. 

He fell the the ground just a few feet from her and then she was running to him. Confused and frightened soldiers rushed to give her cover so that she could move him to a sheltered corner, hopefully out of the way of further harm. The plasma burn in his chest smoked and hissed as he fought to draw breath and Kira had to fight back the tears so that he could have the comfort of looking into her eyes.

"Keep..." His voice rasped in his throat as he desperately tried to communicate something to her. "Keep..." His eyes slid shut.

And the only thing she could do was call out to their soldiers. "You heard him! He said keep fighting!"

Leaving him there felt like leaving a part of herself behind in the broken bricks and shattered glass, but Kira knew her duty. Her duty to the quadrant, to the Federation, to Bajor, to Damar's dream and to the brave Cardassians fighting beside her. She forced herself to her feet, swallowed down the grief that tasted like bile in her throat and forced herself to fight on.

No one would disturb him, she told herself. There were bodies of the dead and dying scattered everywhere. No matter how much the Breen and Jem'Hadar wanted to find Damar, they couldn't possibly have time to check all the faces of every Cardassian lying on the ground in hopes of stumbling across the most important man on the planet.

Kira looked up at the sky. _Prophets,_ she thought. _You wanted me to be with him. Now please, keep him here with me._

And only a few minutes later, far above them, the Cardassian ships began targeting Dominion forces. As a whole, the Cardassian military turned against the alien overlords that had been assigned to them and Kira realized that, impossibly, they had won.

"A doctor! Is anyone here a doctor or a nurse?" Kira knew she must have looked quite mad: a lone Bajoran in a singed Starfleet uniform standing in the middle of a throng of rioting Cardassians, seemingly unharmed but screaming for help. "Legate Damar needs a medic!"

Naming Damar was the key. Several Cardassians ran to her, claiming medical training. She led them to the place where she had left him and thankfully he was still there, shielded from view from the street by rubble. But she couldn't get close enough to touch him or even see for herself if he was still alive. The Cardassian doctors swarmed around him, calling out to each other as they hunted for a pulse and tried to take his vitals. Incredibly, one of them managed to secure land transit, and all she could do was get the name of the nearest hospital before he was gone.

Garak accompanied her to the hospital. By the time they got there, the streets were eerily quiet, the thrill of having expelled the Dominion having dissipated in the fear and uncertainty over what would happen next. Cardassians were not revolutionaries by nature; the full impact of what they had done must have only just been beginning to occur to them. And so many were grieving, retreating indoors to mourn their dead. Only the roads closest to the hospital were still full. 

There were so many injured. But the crowds parted surprisingly quickly for Garak and Kira, whispering as they passed.

The administrator who came to meet them was surprisingly deferential. It was possible that it was down to Garak's presence, but something in the way the man was looking at Kira herself made her wonder if her own reputation on Cardassia hadn't grown along with Damar's. Despite his good manners, however, what he actually had to tell her was infuriating.

"The hospital board has just finished discussing the Legate, and we've decided that we're not going to allow foreigners to see him right now. No one without verified Cardassian identity papers. It's nothing personal, I assure you. It's just that alliances seem to be shifting very quickly, and we don't know how many shape-shifters are actually circulating in the population here. Legate Damar's safety is paramount to us; you must understand that."

Garak protested on her behalf, in equally flowery language. The babble of phrases around her made her head hurt. She had survived the last several months mostly on adrenaline and nervous energy, but now, in the aftermath of the battle, she was suddenly exhausted. More than that, she was aching at the very core of herself for Damar, and the wall of words separating her from him was intolerable.

She cut through their argument with a heavy blunt instrument. "I'm his wife." 

The administrator stared at her, shocked into silence. "I'm Legate Damar's wife", Kira repeated. "And I want to see my husband."

In spite of all the tension, Garak sounded entirely too amused beside her. "Ah, yes. I should have mentioned." He gave a sunny smile and fixed the administrator with a firm look. "I'll vouch for that."

The administrator paused, and Kira realized that this moment must have been a sort of litmus test. Would the new Cardassia turn inwards, hermit-like, and withdraw into itself? Or did the people here still have the capacity to trust?

The administrator nodded gently. "He's sedated, but stable. With time, we're expecting him to make a full recovery. I'll take you to him."

Kira exhaled slowly, relief washing over her as she began to follow him. As she walked, the gravity of what she had just done occurred to her. Making a declaration of marriage, while wearing a Starfleet uniform and in front of a crowded hospital lobby full of witnesses, wasn't something she could just take back. Especially not at a time when the Cardassians were going to need to trust people from other worlds in order to survive. Garak's corroboration made it doubly impossible. But her overall reaction was still one of joy. The man leading her forward had hadn't responded with disgust; rather he'd shown kindness and compassion. He'd shown respect. When Damar woke up, this would be some good news that she could give him.


End file.
